Argumentative

1

Creativity, Innovation & Design

Creativity at the Individual and Team Levels

Teamwork for Creativity

Prepared by Dr Gerrit de Waal

2

In this lecture we will explore:  What is a team?

 Factors that facilitate creativity in teams

 Tuckman’s stages of team formation

 Team roles for creativity

 What is creative conflict (creative abrasion) and why is it

important?

3

What is a team? A team is a small group of people with

complementary skills, who work together to accomplish shared goals while holding themselves

mutually accountable for performance results (Robbins et al. 2015)

4

Factors that facilitate creativity in teams

 Team Psychological Safety– ‘shared belief that the team feels safe for interpersonal risk taking’ (Edmondson, 1999, p. 354). High team psychological safety results in team members not afraid to take risks, voice their new ideas and make mistakes with ideas

 Team diversity – the differences between team members in terms of age, gender, nationality, experience, expertise, personality type, etc. Deep-level diversity based on varied expertise better facilitates team creativity

5

Personality types reveal likes/dislikes & preferences

Jung Typology Test™ / MBTI http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

(Briggs and Myers, 1980)

Extraverted (E) vs. Introverted (I) Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N) Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F) Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)

6

Caution on use of Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator Test (MBTI)

Here is the major issue. By relying strongly on limited binaries, the MBTI gives an oversimplified view of human personality. But human beings are complicated. We don’t fit into neat categories, but rather fall along a spectrum. People aren’t exclusively introverts or extroverts or thinkers or feelers. Data from the Myers-Briggs test itself backs this up, yet in practice, test-takers are lumped into one category or another.

The MBTI and its results aren't exactly reliable. Studies have shown that 50 percent of people are classified into a different type the second time they take the test, even if the test-retest period is short (e.g. five weeks). ... All of this is why most psychologists have abandoned the Myers-Briggs. Jun 29, 2020

https://www.psycom.net/myers-briggs-personality-type

7

Factors that facilitate creativity in teams

 Team climate (culture) – context or environment in which team members function (Somech and Drach-Zahavy 2013). A team climate that expects, approves and provides practical support for creativity better facilitates creativity

 Creative leadership – team leadership that supports and promotes creativity and creative problem solving

 Creative task conflict – disagreements among team members in relation to different ideas and viewpoints on solving a particular problem

8

Creative conflict / abrasion (Leonard and Swap, 2005) Conflict or disagreements in viewpoints/relationships can occur in any context where two or more people need to collaborate on a common issue/problem

Creative task conflict: disagreements in ideas/opinions/viewpoints between two or more members of a team on how the team should perform a task or solve a problem

Relational conflict: interpersonal disagreements and clashes amongst team members

9

Collective genius (Hill, 2014)

10

Tuckman’s stages of team formation Forming: The first stage in which people join the team and then define the team’s purpose, structure and leadership Storming: The second stage is characterised by intra-team conflict Norming: The third stage is characterized by close relationships and cohesiveness Performing: The fourth stage where the team is fully functional Adjourning: The final stage for a temporary team when they start to wrap up activities.

(Robbins et al. 2015)

11

Team Formation Roger Von Oech’s 4 Roles of Team Creativity

• The Explorer’s job is to collect the raw material for creativity. He/she is constantly asking questions, talking to different people, and processing as many inputs as possible.

• The Artist takes the raw material from the Explorer and combines it in new and interesting ways. He/she’s playful and imaginative with no concerns about judging the quality of what he/she’s creating.

• The Judge takes the Artist’s ideas and determines if they’re practical. He/she thinks critically and realistically about what can actually be done.

• Finally, the Warrior takes an idea the Judge has determined worthy and tenaciously follows it to completion. The Warrior’s job is to overcome resistance, be courageous, and ship the idea. https://litemind.com/creativity-roles/

12

References • Amabile, T. M. (1997), ‘Motivating creativity in organizations: Doing what you love and loving what you do’, California Management

Review, vo. 40, no. 1, pp. 39-58. • Briggs, K. and Myers, I. (1980, 1995) Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type • Edmondson, A 1999, ‘Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams’, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 44, no. 2, pp.

350–383. • Fredrickson BL 2001, ‘The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build • theory of positive emotions’, American Psychologist, vol. 56, no.3, pp. 218–226. • Hennessey, BA & Amabile, TM 2010, ‘Creativity’, Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 61, pp. 569-598. • Hill, L. A., Brandeau, G., Truelove, E., & Lineback, K. (2014). Collective Genius. Harvard Business Review(June). • Hughes, D. J., Lee, A., Tian, A. W., Newman, A. & Legood, A. (2018). “Leadership, creativity, and innovation: A critical review and

practical recommendations”, The Leadership Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 5, pp.549–569. • Interaction Design Foundation n.d, Brainstorming, Interaction Design Foundation, viewed 17 July 2020, https://www.interaction-

design.org/literature/topics/brainstorming • Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types (Collected works of C. G. Jung, volume 6, Chapter X) • Leonard, D. A., & Swap, W. (2005). Creative Abrasion - When Sparks Fly: Harnessing the Power of Group Creativity. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard Business School Press. • Robbins, S, Bergman, R, Stagg, I & Coulter, M 2015, Management, Pearson, Australia. • Somech, A & Drach-Zahavy, A 2013, ‘Translating team creativity to innovation implementation: The role of team composition and

climate for innovation’, Journal of Management, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 684-708.